


A Steampunk's Love At The Convention

by AssassinPsyche



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Convention, Cosplay, Cute, Goth - Freeform, Innocent, M/M, Mutual Pining, Percy Jackson is a Good Bro, Percy Jackson is a Good Friend, Steampunk, Sweet, crafting, meet cute, pernico - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:01:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26080834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AssassinPsyche/pseuds/AssassinPsyche
Summary: Percy has a secret, he loves steampunk! He has going to the convention in his ultimate steampunk outfit. He never thought he'd see the dark Italian boy, Nico at that convention. Maybe he could turn this into his favor.
Relationships: Nico di Angelo/Percy Jackson
Kudos: 36





	A Steampunk's Love At The Convention

Nico Di Angelo sighed as he walked out of the school. He moved his clothing the best he could to cushion the new bruises decorating his pale form. He glared all around hating everyone, hating this new school in this new country. Though he had been going to this high school for three years and been in this country for nearly a decade it was not his.

No, Italy would always be where he truly felt was his. However when his mother, Maria, had died his father Hades had moved his children to a new place, away from all the awful memories. It was honestly more for his self then his children who had been six and eight at the time but he didn't think of it that way.

So the small family moved to America, going to Las Vegas where Hades met a young show girl named Persephone. At first he had been way more into her then she was into him, however she came to genially care for him. They married and she was nice enough, even though it was hard for her to take suddenly being a parent to a seven and nine year old. However she managed somewhat. Though they ended up sending both children to a boarding school, at first they both went to the same one, however going into middle school his older sister Bianca had decided instead to go back home to Italy to the Artemis Girls School.

She was offered a full scholarship for her talent at the harp. She wrote to him once a week and called him every other day, but still he missed her. He felt abandoned by her, but still he loved her. Away from Bianca as she grew into her own, he shrunk further and further away from the world.

He buried himself in the written works of Bronte, Shelly, Dickinson; both Emily and Charles, Poe. He loved mythology and read more and more about them, learning and connecting. He even wrote what he could figure out of a time line for several different sets of gods. He also loved classical horror, Dario Argento being a favorite.

All these interests, his accent and him occasionally slipping into Italian made him very unique. His naturally pale skin, black hair and matching eyes along with his penchant for wearing black clothing and skull accessories made him an outcast.

And an outcast was ripe picking for bullying. His slipping into Italian had some of the girls fawning over him, thinking of him as romantic, and when they found he dabbled in painting they thought of him as a 'tortured artist' who would take them to a candlelit room and make sweet passionate love to them.

Yeah, right.

He might be bisexual, but he wasn't interested in any of the girls at the school. None ever bothered talking to him, and the only ones who tried to flirt with him-if you could honestly call it that-they were the same ones who used to make fun of him so obviously he wasn't interested.

That didn't stop a lot of jocks from beating him up.

As he was walking by he noticed the one person who had managed to catch his dark eyes. Percy Jackson.

Percy was the one person who was something different to him. The tanned boy with the leaned body of a swimmer wasn't that shocking, pretty much everyone on both the boy's and girl's swimming team had the same type of body, and quiet a few people who weren't on a swim team had that body type, about a quarter. But there was more than that, it wasn't just his sea foam eyes that sometimes looked green and sometimes blue or his soft looking chocolate locks.

It was the amount of kindness that he showed to many. He was always watching over his little brother, a big lug named Tyson. Once Nico himself had been given his kindness, he had seen Nico all alone so had went and picked up some cupcakes. He and Tyson would be going home for the weekend to be with their family for his birthday. However his birthday was on Tuesday last year so she had sent him a batch of blue cupcakes, what he called birthday-cupcakes. He had taken the cupcake, what Nico found out later was his last one, and gave it to him.

It honestly was delicious. He expected it to be blueberry or something but it was actually red velvet flavoured. The ones he has had were all very bland but this one that Percy's mom had made was delicous, slightly sweet with a phantom tang. Nico didn't really care for anything overly sweet anyway. But it could have been stale and coat-your-tongue-in-sweetness-so-that-you-can't-taste-anything-but-sweet kind and it would be amazing to him.

However being kind he knew that Percy wouldn't ever want anything with him, so he turned away from thinking of it.

What Nico didn't know was that Percy, who was admittedly a reasonably popular and could be considered a jock. However he also had his nerdy side. For one he was way into steam punk. His brother Tyson loved to tinker with things, while Percy loved steam punk.

He was actually a up and coming steam punk creator. Her had made several sets of fashion himself and had sold them online. He and Tyson had actually made their own side business called Hippocampus Steampunk. Hippocampus was Tyson's favorite animal, even though they didn't exist he loved the 'horse mermaids' and it also was the part of the brain that handled memory, so they had gone with that.

Percy was headed to a nearby convention, they were allowed to leave as long as they were in their room by curfew. So he decided to model one of the newest outfits they would be selling. It was a inventor outfit. He wore a pair of boots that were wrapped up in chains with a holder on the right side, he was right handed but it would be on the right side or left boot depending on which handedness the buyer was, or they could pick the opposite if they wished, the holder held a screwdriver.

His pants were brown and stitched in an almost Frankenstein-esque way. On his left thigh was a leather strap that held a compass, he would just have to lift up his leg and could see the compass. Under it he wore only a brown leather vest with three straps going along his shoulders on either side being held by gears. The buttons on the vest held by interlocking hooks. He wore a half mask that was similar to surgical mask, it was black with waves and a ship stitched in blue and green, it wrapped around right over the bridge of his nose and around his neck.

He had a pair of googles on that could close and open one set was dark green,the middle was a pink color, and another a black being able to pull them open to see different colors combining them. He also wore a top hat that had a teal fabric tied around it the ends reaching almost his shoulders. His left hand was a black leather glove and a air pressure watcher like a watch around his wrist. His right hand and arm all the way to right past his elbow. It was a golden gauntlet type, it held a watch on the underside of his forearm, while it held three working light bulbs along the top of his forearm.

Nico was going to the same convention. He was wearing a pair of leather jeans that weren't tight but also weren't baggy. He wore a black silk button up shirt, the buttons were little silver skulls and the the cuff links were matching silver but were skull and crossbones. He wore a bright red tie that was held with a tie clip that matched his cuff links, his hair kept it's normal slightly messy look.

He loved the convention and came every year. It was filled with plenty of people who were different and didn't look badly at someone for not looking 'normal'. He had seen once or twice someone putting another down for having the wrong physique. He had stepped in and protected them when he saw it. He wouldn't allow this, not at the one place he went and felt a bit of...home. Not fully but enough to make Nico feel relaxed.

As he was wandering around, he really didn't know what he'd do. His school life as well as his home life with his dad and step-mom were just so structured. His dad was very stubborn, it's my way or the highway kind of guy, Nico was also stubborn so their personalities clashed a lot. Persephone also had a love for structure, structure helped plants grow. So here, where he could do pretty much whatever he wanted, he chose to let the wind take him.

So it was when he was grabbing a bite to eat, he had picked up some McDonald's. He knew it wasn't healthy but he loved the taste of a kid's meal and cock. He didn't care the strange looks he'd get, so taking that he found a quiet place to eat. He opened up the book he had been reading, Nico had dyslexia and ADD so for him reading was hard. Between the words bouncing off the page and rearranging themselves, and him not really being made to sit still for long periods of time it was a chore.

However he liked the stories, and he did do quiet a bit of reading. Usually he'd get a book from the library, take it back to his dorm and read it walking back and forth, which helped keep him in check. He was a slow reader but in this case he could take all the time in the world. If it took him a year to read a book? No one was affected but him. Of course it didn't take him that long, he had insomnia to top off the trifecta of suckey mental conditions. So he would plow through books reading a novel a week.

He had become a frequent flier at the library and the librarian, Mrs. Athena as all the students called her, but her name was really Mrs. Chase. She had a daughter as well, Annabelle? Annabeth? He didn't really know her. The few times he had seen her, her gray eyes being identical to her mother, she had seemed really nice. Smart as a whip to. He remembered her as someone who never said anything to him, she and he were friendly but didn't talk. Which instantly made her above a lot of people at the school in his eyes.

But he didn't get up to walk around when he was eating. No, he shook his leg. Pushing his foot up so only the ball of his feet touched the ground his leg would shake fast and that would help as he read with one hand and ate with the other. A lot of people didn't like it and would ask him to stop. He tried, he really did, but he would do it without realizing it. He even tried putting his feet against the inner workings of the table as he ate in the mess hall but that would make the table jiggle more. Students would go and complain, he would explain to the teachers he had ADD and he wasn't trying to, it happened without him thinking about it.

So they couldn't exactly punish him for having a mental condition. So they couldn't make him stop or sit away. Everyone else sat away from him. But he didn't mind, honestly he preferred it that way.

And when they realized all they had to do was let him shake his leg so he could actually focus they allowed it. He was far from the star student but he was bearable. It might have been Mrs. Athena putting in a good word for him, she seemed to like him. He was quiet, always put the books away where they belonged if he changed his mind of what he wanted, was never late returning a book, and it had come to the point where she would have a few recommendations when he entered of something he hadn't read that she thought he'd like, getting an idea for his taste from the books he read. It was actually her recommendation that he was currently reading. Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. It was one of those put some kind of monster in classical literature that had been popular for a while, starting with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. From there it had spiraled for a while but only lasted a year or two. Romeo and Juliet and Vampires, Pretty Little Vampire Women, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies; Dawn of the Dreadfuls and so on. However what he read of this one he thought it might be a bit of a gem. Though it was interesting to combine monsters to classical literature he loving gothic novels and that was about as gothic as you could get.

But most of them followed the story too closely. If zombies were really thrown in, he didn't think people would continue on as they once did. Or suddenly some people are vampires with no explanation on why they were allowed to stay. At least this one the entire story feel of the story was changed. It was still very much Sense and Sensibility but now the fact Sea Monsters were thrown in is the entire purpose of the book. It felt more like it's own person, instead of putting a different dress on someone and claiming they were a different person.

Still he loved all of these Monstical Literature as he called them. They were a guilty pleasure.

He wasn't steam punk, but this was a steam punk novel and it was actually very enjoyable. As he munched on the small burger, apples, and fries and sip his drink. His leg was shaking and reading. He had found an abandoned room and so was eating there. He was half done with his meal when he heard something. Looking up he spotted Percy. Of course he didn't know that it was Percy. Percy, on the other hand, recognized Nico right away. How could he not?

He didn't have a crush on Nico for nothing.

He had noticed Nico around school, the young man was quiet striking. He wore black denim, cotton, and leather and the only colors were white skulls, the occasional slip of red or the rare bit of blue, but the way he dressed wasn't even the most striking; it played up his natural looks. He was pale with raven locks and black holes for eyes. He called them that because his hair looked just as shiny and silky as a raven's feathers and his eyes while they were completely black so much you couldn't even see the pupil the times he was able to look into his eyes it was far too much to ask him to look away.

He noticed the way Nico would always be reading and the way he moved seemed oddly graceful. Ballet like almost, like every slight movement was part of a carefully choreographed dance. Even the shaking of his leg matched.

And his voice! He never before understood comparing a sound to a flavor like those romance novels his mother read. But good gods...Nico's voice! It was chocolate, pure and simple. Dark, smooth and slightly sweet. He needed marshmallows with a voice like that. That wasn't even mentioning his accent, which Percy found to be audible perfection. He loved the way Nico spoke, the way his accent gave a lilting quality to the words he spoke. The way he said Percy's name was...honestly it was so amazing. He wished that he could hear Nico say his name everyday. His favorite, even more then when he said his name, was when he spoke Italian. It was extremely rare, so much that Percy only heard it once, but he had loved it.

He just wanted to hold Nico and hear him speak Italian. He didn't care what he said. Percy was crushing. He was crushing hard.

Percy actually had entered for the same reason as Nico, he had a lunch that his mother had actually packed for him. She knew that Percy would be going to the convention. She had made lunches for both, Percy was here at the convention but Tyson was going to a Robot Club where he and frineds worked on making robots. He had actually made one that would go about sucking up water.

She would make blue food for special occasions ever since she was a child, it was both her own and Percy's favorite colors, while Posiden and Tyson liked green, so she now made them a greenish blue color. The color that was actually the exact color of Posiden and Percy's eyes, Tyson had gotten her hazel colored eyes.

She had actually made Percy a steampunk bento box. It would actually open from a key that he had in one of his pockets, the gears turning to open. 

“Oh hello,” Nico said glancing at him and looking around, “is this room need to be used?” He asked and Percy noticed the McDonald's. Also that he didn't recognize him, which did make him feel bad. But he then remembered his lower face was covered in a mask, his eyes covered by goggles and a hat on his head. It wouldn't make sense for Nico to notice him.

“No, I'm just trying to find somewhere to eat lunch, mind if I join you?” He asked and Nico nodded to the seat near him.

“Be my guest,” he agreed, “I'm Nico.”

“Perseus.” He introduced sitting beside him and opening his lunchbox. His mom had made him the green-blue food again. Fresh green-blue bread she had made and sliced herself, it was a lobster roll, a small salad that she hadn't dyed but had plenty of leafy greens and also blueberries, as well as other fruit and vegetables. She also had a small blue omelet and blue rice. A growing boy and all that. She could be so embarrassing sometimes. She had also sent me with a blue cupcake with green frosting.

Percy took off his mask to begin eating. Nico didn't say anything continuing to read. However Percy realized that this was his chance. He could try to start up a conversation with Nico. “You like reading?” He asked and Nico took it as him just starting up conversation.

“Yeah...I like the stories.” He said and Percy nodded, he tried sharing something with him. He wanted to be his friend at least.

“That's nice, I have dyslexia and ADD so reading is kind of...yeah.” He sighed and Nico glanced at him looking shocked, “what?”

“I do to.” He explained and Percy let out a low whistle.

“Really?”

“Really, I also have insomnia.” He groaned shaking his head, “I found ways to help my ADD by shaking my leg or walking along as I read, it helps me a bit. For my dyslexia I just read a bit and try to find something that matches the sentence, I have to take my time but it works. But I can't find any way to help my insomnia.” He sighed and Percy hummed.

“Well I don't have insomnia, but I do some work outs so I'm always so tired by the time it is time to go to sleep.” Percy sighed, “maybe do some exercise before sleeping? Or taking a hot bath.” He added, insomnia was basically just an inability to sleep, everyone dealt with that every once in a while but the insomniac dealt with it all the time. “Maybe lavender or peppermint, aromatherapy you know?” At this Nico shrugged.

“Maybe, I can try it at least, it won't help to try.”

“Exactly. And maybe I should try reading like that.

“I'd recommend it, a lot of books are better than tv or movies, they can go just right in depth. And they also won't have you missing something important either, unless they are meant to be missed for a twist or something.” Nico recommended and Percy nodded, he understood, everyone said that the book was better. Than pretty much anything.

“So...is that a good book?” He asked and Nico glanced at him, his brow furrowed but he nodded.

“Honestly I like it, it's Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. Honestly it reminds me of this boy at my school.” Nico added and was blushing slightly. Percy frowned now feeling bad, Nico liked someone already, he wouldn't blush for no reason. It made Percy strangely mad, that someone else was putting that blush on his face.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, he's the swim team captain.” Percy gasped but he was in the middle of chewing on the egg so he wasn't heard. “But...he'd never notice me.” He added looking sadly and that just about ripped Percy's heart apart. How could Nico feel that way about himself? Percy had seen some people make fun of Nico and had put a stop to it. “Much less like me,” he added and looked kind of heart broken, obviously not even bothering to continue reading, he wasn't in the mood right now. Percy started to worry that maybe the mental scars were more than he thought. 

Gathering his courage he took off his hat and pushed his googles down to rest over his neck. “Don't put yourself down like that Nico, I'm sure Percy does.” It felt a bit awkward to refer to himself in the third person. Nico jumped shocked, how did he know the name of the boy?! Turning he froze before he could speak.

“P...Percy?” He whispered and Percy smiled at him. He took his hand and smiled at him.

“Do you really like me back?” Percy asked blushing and Nico's eyes widened.

“Back?” Percy just nodded but when Nico nodded he grinned. Being now completely sure, he did as his sea captain father said, screwed his courage to the sticking place. And leaned over to kiss him. Nico gasped but held Percy close to him.

Pulling away from the long kiss Percy pecked him then, almost like a signature to the kiss. “Is this a dream?” Nico whispered then, realizing what he said, blushed and looked away looking so innocent and demure. However Percy just grinned.

“If it is, I hope I never wake up.” He then nuzzled his nose against Nico's before once again kissing him.

On Monday when Percy walked by holding Nico's hand everyone was shocked. Well, almost everyone. Tyson was grinning and when Percy stopped to talk to him all he said was “finally, brother.”

Finally, indeed.

**Author's Note:**

> This one short was inspired from me realizing something, Nico as the son of Hades is pretty much goth. Thalia, the daughter of Zeus, Percy outright stated she was punk. Why is Percy, as a son of Posiden, not something similar? So, in my mind he should be steampunk, which I envision like a 9,000 Leagues Under the Sea-esque kind of thing.
> 
> Now let me explain, ADD and ADHD are one of those things where it is very much a custom fit. What works well for one person doesn't always work for another. So in the story Nico shaking his leg helps with his ADD. If you have or know someone who has this, this may or may not help them. If you haven't tried I'd urge you to try. The worst that will happen is you'll find out it doesn't work. Working as a substitute teacher, fidget spinners are the bane of my existence, but try it!


End file.
